That dent? I have no idea how that dent got there — a new survey on prevarication.

I guess the first lesson should be: never agree to take part in a survey. Nothing good will come of it. But since you – or, rather, the editorial you, that vast and anonymous sea of surveyees – did agree to take part in this particular project, the results are quite delicious, largely because the subject is all about truth-telling or the lack of it. We are nothing, if not a nation built on the guilty pleasure of enjoying the lies that other people are caught in.

Insure.com, a Web site that provides consumer information about the labyrinthine insurance industry, did a survey that shows spouses lie to their partners when they have traffic accidents or get tickets for moving violations or forget to pay their insurance bill — transgressions that won’t send you to San Quentin for life, but can be the innocuous opening shots in what occasionally becomes a full-blown war between the spouses, assuming the rest of their day was pretty lousy too.

And, to get this up front (guys, take note): the insure.com survey found that “men have a higher propensity for lying, across the board. When results for wives vs. husbands were examined, insure.com found that 42 percent of men dinged the car and blamed someone else, compared to 27 percent of women.”